On March 1 at 4:50 p.m., Officers Jordan Miranda, Harold Azurdia and Paul Duran were dispatched to (the new) Old Navy store on Passaic Avenue for a shoplifting. Store management showed officers surveillance video of a man, later identified as John Bimbo, 47, of Paterson, allegedly filling a mesh shopping bag with $1,615.66 of merchandise and then carrying it out of the store without paying. The alleged garment grabber fled the store before police were called.
After taking a report, Officer Miranda found Bimbo at the bus stop at Belgrove Drive and Bergen Avenue, accompanied by a mesh bag of clothes. He arrested Bimbo and recovered the stolen clothes, $446.07 of electronics stolen from a nearby Five Below store, a package addressed to a Lindsay Lane resident, a debit card embossed to another person, a wax fold, a smoking pipe and a cut straw (all of which are commonly used to ingest heroin).
Bimbo was charged with shoplifting, two counts of receiving stolen property, theft of property lost or mislaid, and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was held at the Hudson County Jail.
On Feb. 26 at 10:55 p.m., Officer Lawrence Latka and several backup officers responded to a residential apartment building for a report of a domestic dispute involving a knife. A 26-year-old Newark woman told cops she came over her 64-year-old boyfriend’s Kearny apartment to hang out.
Things took a turn for the worse when the two disagreed over the use of a prophylactic for a planned activity. Allegedly this led to the boyfriend announcing, “Motherf—ers don’t know me,” and chasing the girlfriend with a kitchen knife. It was reported the boyfriend may have pressed the knife against the victim’s back before she was able to flee the apartment.
As officers were readying to advance on the apartment, the boyfriend came to the window and officers coached him out of the apartment peacefully. Officers later recovered a kitchen knife from the kitchen counter and arrested the “boyfriend.” He was charged with aggravated and simple assault, terroristic threats and weapon possession offenses. The defendant was later booked into the Hudson County Jail.
On Feb. 27 at 1 p.m., Officers Jonathan Lima and Jason Rodrigues were dispatched to Union County Police Department, which was holding Alexys Duran-Vasquez on a Kearny Municipal Court warrant charging criminal mischief and weapon possession offenses. The warrant stemmed from a Nov. 6 incident on Newark Turnpike allegedly between Duran-Vazquez and a domestic victim. It was alleged Duran-Vasquez discovered the victim owned a second cellular phone and thereafter threw the phone into the meadows and smashed two windows of her Mercedes with a baseball bat.
Officers filed a criminal complaint in November against Duran-Vasquez, who had remained un-apprehended until now. Following his booking, Duran-Vasquez was held at the Hudson County Jail.
On March 1 at 3:10 p.m., Officer Mat Lopez was sent to a residence on a report of a restraining order violation. The officer was informed Douglas J. Welfl, 37, of Kearny, had been allowed into the house the prior evening but now refused to leave. A domestic-violence restraining order allegedly barred Welfl from the premises.
Officer Lopez arrested Welfl on a charge of contempt of a domestic violence order. Welfl was later placed into the county jail in South Kearny.
On March 1 at 8:01 p.m., Officer Cort Montanino was patrolling the Harrison Avenue parking lot of a Verizon Store and saw a man in an idling Mercedes bearing a stolen Alabama license plate and exhibiting what the officer assessed was fresh, heavy rear-end damage.
After confirming with NYPD the Alabama license plate was still listed as stolen from their jurisdiction, Officer Montanino arrested driver Jonathan T. Manigault, 37, of the Bronx, and impounded the car. Manigault was charged by summons with receiving stolen property and later released.
On March 4 at 11:56 a.m., Sgt. Jack Grimm and Officers Jason Rodrigues and John Fearon responded to a report by ShopRite management that a man had swindled them out of seafood. The manager accused Juan A. Gomez Lara, 38, of Clifton, of concealing $301.50 of seafood merchandise in a reusable bag and then attempting to leave the store without paying. Gomez Lara was also wanted on a traffic warrant issued by Lodi Municipal Court. Officers arrested Gomez Lara, charging him by summons with shoplifting. Lodi authorities later released Gomez Lara and issued him a new court date.
On March 5 at 4:29 a.m., Officer Bryan San Martin and several backup officers converged on Highland Avenue on a report of juveniles trying the doors of parked cars and running in and out of residential back yards. Officers located four boys running south on Highland Avenue from Bergen Avenue and then taking concealment in a residential yard, where the officers detained them.
After further investigation, the officers took into custody four boys, aged 15, 14, 14, and 13. Each was charged as a juvenile delinquent with conspiracy and attempt to commit burglary. They were all later released into the custody of parents or guardians.
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Capt. Timothy Wagner | Kearny Police Department
Capt. Timothy Wagner is the Kearny Police Department's public-information officer and the commander of the department's Internal Affairs Unit. He contributes the KPD Blotter weekly and writes it completely.